


Of Blood and Starvation

by redlionspride



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Beards (Facial Hair), Gen, Happy Ending, Imprisonment, M/M, Mental Breakdown, Physical Abuse, Pirates, Prompt Fic, Rescue, Scruffy Hux, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-17
Updated: 2016-05-17
Packaged: 2018-06-08 23:27:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,074
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6879802
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/redlionspride/pseuds/redlionspride
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Captured and put in a cell by Pirates, Hux has to deal with he and Captain Phasma's slow starving torture and hope that rescue comes soon. </p><p>Kylo Ren is searching, right? It's been a month and a half and hope is slowly being lost.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Of Blood and Starvation

**Author's Note:**

> This is another TFA_Kinkmeme fill. The request was for scruffy, bearded, bloody, starvation levels of torture fic. So, that's all this really is. Torture for the sake of doing it. There is some form of Kylux relationship here, though maybe not exactly established, but def been tripping up into each other. 
> 
> I hope you enjoy! 
> 
> Prompt:  
> http://tfa-kink.dreamwidth.org/2821.html?thread=5083653#cmt5083653

It was the faintest of warmth that graced his pale face. A simple beam of light seeping through the bottom of his cell door, just enough that he could feel the difference from the cold of dark and the warmth of light. 

Just enough to wake him again from his weak sleep. 

His body had gone beyond aches weeks ago. This pain he felt through every fiber of his being was his natural state now. Moving slowly to push himself up he felt the pains rack through his arms and his shoulders, protesting the movement, but doing it anyhow. He felt the cracks in his joints and the pain in his knees as he rolled to sitting once more. Another morning. Another cold and dirty morning. 

In the dim light of the new morning he could see the sun dance across the dirt floor of his small three by seven concrete and wood cell. In another thirty minutes the wall where he marks the passage of time would be view-able. View-able enough to get a count again, not that he needed it. Not that he didn’t remember the days in his head, but a view-able one helped. In a few minutes he would mark yet another day. 

As the light shifted to his wall he moved, hand scrubbing around on the floor for the rock he used to make marks. His slender fingers closing around the slowly shrinking piece of concrete as he lifted it to the wall. He wasn't sure what he would use once this was used up. Once it was chipped away into nothing. That was how he felt about himself. Slowly being used up and chipped away into nothing. He hoped he wouldn’t have to worry about the tiny stone in days to come. That it won't matter soon. Either he’d be dead or he’d be found, one or the other. 

Every morning that he had noticed the sun rise, he left a mark. Every morning he has noticed, that is. He can’t be one hundred percent sure about his tracked time, as there have been days that he felt were longer than others, as if he slept through the morning. And there had been times that they left him in the cell once more, knocked out and unable to wake. He marked the passage of time as best he could, but it’s only for him. It’s only to give him an idea of what he has survived. What he has endured. 

Forty-three. There are forty three marks on the wall at the moment. His fingers move to scrub on a forty fourth mark, carefully pushing the stone with the palm of his hand up and down. It has been forty four days since the attack. Since his fighters were taken out from around them. Since the shuttle he had been on board was taken out by an ion cannon and left deader than a Hutt in deep space. 

Hux leaned back in his cell, his mind wandering once again, thinking back on when it happened. Had there been more he could have done? Was there something else he could have done to assure their victory? All this time, his mind would still wander like this, having nothing else to do.

Nothing else to do but re-play, over and over how he got here. 

The shuttle had been boarded and though he was good enough in a fight, he was sure that they wouldn’t have taken out nearly as many pirates as they had if Captain Phasma had not been there as well. She was a fighter he could and did respect. One that moved in such a way that no amount of energy was lost and every ounce of it was applied to her battle. To take out what needed to be taken out. That day she proved why she was the best.

Hux was no slouch when it came to a fight. He took out as many as he could at the time, but he still marveled at the Captain and her combat skills. They might have stood a chance if it wasn’t for the explosive device that had been thrown onto the bridge. He could remember the realization that they were screwed as he saw it hit deck, bounce twice and roll towards them. Phasma saw it as well and moved into action, jumping to cover the General with her armored body, taking the brunt of the blast. 

When he woke some time later the General found himself on a dirt floor of the small dingy old cell, face down and crumpled up. Hux had no idea how long they had been in here like this, but he had ached as he moved, his body protesting the actions in a moment like that of a spoiled rotten child's complaining fit. It didn’t want to move, but Hux made himself do as he wanted. Sitting up to look around, unable to see well at all. 

He found that Captain Phasma was in the cell beside his. They were able to talk to each other by speaking through the front of the cell, letting their voices drift to the other. Neither had any idea what planet they were on, what day it was and how long they had been there.

The two spoke back and forth trying to bash out what their location was, where their last known location was and how long it would take anyone to realize that there was something wrong. Their trip was suppose to be a few days long. If they don’t show up to their destination, warnings would go up. Alarms would go off. People would start to look for them. The General, after all, was important. As was the Captain. 

Someone would be looking for them. Either in a day, or they were already searching, depending on how long they were out of it. 

The two of them sat in their cells for a few days. Water was given once every other day and in short supply. Food came every three days and in even smaller supply, as if they were the table scraps left over from the pirate's feasts. 

It wasn’t much, but it was enough to keep two prisoners alive.

It was around day twenty nine that they had more than a simple drop off of a meal slid under the door. He heard the cell door open beside him. Several pairs of boots scraped along the ground as they reached in to grab her, pulling Phasma to her feet and out of the cell. Hux could hear the scuffle instantly. The Captain wasted no time trying to earn their freedom. There was a fight, but she was weakened and tired and no match for as many troops as the pirates had there to take her away. Even laying down Hux could just barely see past the slit of the bottom of the door as they dragged her away, the woman still trying to fight, even as she bled. 

Hux moved to the back of the cell, standing as well as he could, fists drawn up and ready to go down swinging if he had to, but after a few minutes he had realized no one was going to open his cell door. 

He was left alone. 

As night came he was still alone. No one in the cell beside him to talk to. No one to work information out with. No one to bounce ideas off. No one to listen to as they both drifted off to sleep. It was never a need before this. He was always self sufficient and able to rest with out the comforts of another person beside him, and yet now? Now he found it even harder to rest when all that greeted him now was silence and the clicks of some strange insect beyond the door.

Time passed and soon he returned to being used to being alone. 

Outside his cell he could hear footsteps coming closer. His eyes wandered to his tally marked wall, but it was too dark to see. He had to think back on the days and noted that today was an off day. No food or water would be delivered today, not unless they were breaking their new line of habits. He moved, laying belly flat on the cell, and turning so his head was ear down into the dirt, closing one eye and peeking out with the other. An ice cold blue eye peeking out to see two pirates dragging something. Someone. 

Without seeing the body properly he could hear it when they tossed the body inside the cell. The one next to him. The hard thump of flesh on dirt. The soft grunt of a woman with a deep voice. Phasma, though he saw no shine of chrome armor, so he couldn’t be sure. Stripped of her protective gear ages ago. Unfortunately he couldn’t get a good view of her.

They had dragged Phasma off about sixteen days ago. He had been here alone for all that time with no one to talk to and no hope of hearing the woman again. Another of his precious troopers no doubt dead. Hux did put great faith in his Stormtroopers, because he knew they were so well trained but they were also loyal to him. Something he liked to have rewarded from time to time. Phasma had been the best of the best, not only in how she trained and her loyalty but in how she brought up the next generations. 

And here she was his only line to sanity. His only tie to being the General he once was. That one person he had to keep alive to prove he wasn’t the worst General out there. Lost in space to pirate and unable to protect himself or others. He wouldn’t allow it. 

Yet here he was, laying in dirt, his uniform destroyed, his face dirty and covered in short red fuzz of a beard he did not permit to grow. A beard he generally shaved away every morning in his natural grooming routine. Here he was, dirty like a wallowing creature, scruffy and unable to do anything at all. 

It had been sixteen days since they took her away, fighting and kicking. He had heard blaster fire at some point, but he hadn’t heard what happened in the end. For a while he thought that she had fought back and lost. Now it seemed they had taken her away and held her elsewhere. 

He had been fairly certain that the damned woman was dead. He had given up hope on her being alive some days ago. 

It felt like some time later, now that the sun was no longer slipping into his cell door, that he heard movement at first, then a groan from the other cell. A grown followed by a soft curse in an accent he did, in fact, know.

“Phasma?” He had whispered through his cell door, body to the ground and head turned, as if maybe he could catch a peek of her, though he knew he could not. “Is that you?” 

There was a long pause before he heard movement again, and soon the shuffle of a body leaning into the cell door. 

“General, sir. I thought they killed you.” It was indeed Phasma, thought she sounded in pain, and her breathing was labored just from the small amount of movement she had done. 

“If only we were to be that fortunate.” he said dryly, resting his head down again, his hand coming up to rake through the longish red beard he had grown out while trapped in here. It felt dirty and course, and not at all comfortable, but there was little he could do about it. There was little he could do about anything. 

“Don’t talk like that sir. We’ll get out of here. Others will be looking still.” She had said it off and on, any time Hux had slowly started to give up hope of being found. He knows his men, he trusts them to search until they do find something, but he doesn’t trust how well these pirates have actually hidden them. 

“Where have you been, Captain?” He said instead, as if to try and figure something out. “You were gone for some time. Sixteen days, if my count is right.” 

“Was it that long?” She said with a dry short huff of a laugh, only to break down into a fit of coughing. 

Hux closed his eyes as he heard it. She didn’t sound well. “Unless I marked it down wrong. It could have been longer.” 

The coughing subsided and the woman wheezed for a long moment, as if trying to catch her breath before continuing. “I’m not sure where they had me, sir. I was in a holding tank for a while. Days, I thought. It took days to fill. Just as I thought the air was done and gone, the hatch opened. They hauled me out. Hung me to dry, he said.” 

“He?” Hux pressed, eyes closed again, hand rubbing over his dirty face. He barely had the strength for that. 

“Captain Dezzell, they call him. Of the Mynock Mockers.” She coughed again, sounding as if she were in great pain. Anything else she said was cut off, silent after this fit. 

Laying there he couldn’t help the feel of worry that pushed into his chest again. He told himself he was only worried about being left alone here again. That if she died in the cell there would go his chance of escape or conversation to keep him sane. In truth he was worried about her. Phasma was a good woman, trusted and loyal. She was smart, a brilliant fighter and tactician. He’d come to see her as one of the few he fully trusted. 

And he trusted so few. 

“Captain?” He called out through the door, softly, keeping an ear out for her. 

She made no reply in voice, no movement either. The only sound she made was the soft wheeze of breath. 

“Phasma…” Hux said instead, pressing his hand to the door, as if it would bring him closer to reaching for the other. “Phasma, stay with me.” 

There was a long pause, a breath let out, long and slow, then… “Is that an order, General?”

“So formal.” He said with a snort, letting his hand fall to the ground as she spoke again. “If it makes you feel better, then yes, that is an order.” 

After another long pause, he could just barely hear the soft reply. “As you wish, Hux.” 

“Better.” He said, letting out a breath, dust puffing up before him, though he barely noticed it. “How badly wounded are you?” Because she had to be, to be this bad off. They had been here for so long, in dirt and grime, creatures and bugs trying to get in to get to them, and with frequent beatings from their pirate captors. This sounded to be the worst of it so far. 

“Not that bad…” came the reply, an odd assurance that he couldn’t believe. 

“I don’t like it when my most trusted people lie to me.” He said with a little stern tone in his voice, one that faded away with ease. Far too tired to keep it up. 

For the longest time there was no reply. He called her name a few times, but she said nothing. Just the barest sound of her breathing. What felt like forever passed, before finally she spoke again. 

“Broken ribs. Broken nose. Can’t open the left eye.” She took in another slow breath, pained. “They… took my trigger hand. Cauterized it.” Then, softer still, added. “They still ask for no information.” 

The two lay in silence for some time after that. That was part of what was bothering Hux, that they had been here for over a galactic standard month and a half and no one really seemed to ask questions. At first it felt as if they had got lucky in finding his shuttle, but as that first week went on, he realized the sickening truth to the matter.

They knew who he was. They knew where he would be. He had been betrayed, though he knows not by who. Now he was sure of it. They had been sold out. The pirates paid to take them down. But why not just kill them? Why hold them prisoner. He had yet to hear anyone else from his shuttle in the camp. No survivors out of any of his troopers. Just the Captain and himself. Yes, they were the important ones, but why keep them alive? 

At first he thought for the ransom, but if they were paid, who would they ransom them off to? The Resistance? He doubted they would pay for his life, or hers. Better to see the two of them rot in a cell then pay off. The First Order then. Except he doubted his father would care to spend a single credit to get him back. The First Order does not negotiate with pirates. 

To top that worry off, the thought that their betrayal came from inside was also at the back of his mind. No one else knew of this trip. No one knew his destination but him, Phasma, Kylo Ren and the pilot of the shuttle. Coordinates were sent to the fighters ships every jump, ensuring no one person outside of the small group would know. 

He doesn’t remember falling asleep again, but the nightmares that fog his mind run wild enough to put him in a state of panic when he wakes again, sitting up, hands pressed to his concave belly and his sunken chest, gasping for breath. 

Never in his life has he been this scared for this long. Fear is for the weak, his father would tell him. Fear is for those who will never be the greatest. 

The fear was nearly beat out of him as he grew up. Now as he sat here, alone in a cell barely large enough to move around in, he feared this would be the death of him. He almost wished their captors were the Resistance. At least those bleeding hearts would care for their prisoners better than this. A prisoner of war was much better a term then a prisoner of pirates. 

“Hux?” It had been her third time calling his name, and though he doesn’t recall hearing her the first two times, he had the mentality enough to realize she had been calling to him.

“Still here…” He called back, slumping down against the wall once more, a hand pressing to his chest, slowing his heart rate. 

They said nothing else for some time. 

The sun rised again, but he almost missed it this time. He passed out, back against the cell wall, arms wrapped around his pants, once proper imperial gray, now so stained with dirt and muck that the color was a nasty brown. The dirt didn’t bother him anymore. Instead he willingly laid his forehead into his knees and slept holding himself up in a corner of the cell. Small, compact, tired. 

When the cell door open, it came with a hard bang. The creak of wood and metal swinging over and crashing into the outer wall in protest. He could see a figure in the door way, the light behind him glowing around him, making it hard to see who or what had stood there. Day forty five. The figure stood there, spear pointed to him, demanding him to stand. Some filthy alien language he doesn’t know. 

They reach in, grabbing his arm so forcefully he’s almost worried it would break. If not that, the force they flung him from the cell might have. As he crashed into the forest ground before him he felt as if something in his shoulder popped, a small dislocation, perhaps. Leaning over the ground on all fours, he hissed in pain, bringing his arm up to protect it to his chest. 

It was the first time he had seen himself in the light in weeks. His skin so pale, more so than normal. The tendons running in his hands were so visible he looked almost but not quite skeletal. His arms were weak, as were his legs. 

He could see the wiry scruff around his lips and jaw, sticking out unkempt and hazardous, dirty with dust from his cell floor. 

As two men grabbed either arm, hauling him up he let out a growl of pain, feeling his shoulder pop again with the roughness.

Trapped for weeks, he had tried to fight at first, but after a while it became too much. Something about right now however, sent him on the edge of a wild moment. He jerked, trying to free an arm. Kicked out at the man ahead of them, and managed to surprise his two escorts enough to grab a blaster. 

This was stupid. He knows it is. He knows he is outmanned and outgunned, but as the cold metal of the blaster rests, so oddly heavy in his hands, he feels a glimmer of hope, and opens fire. 

He took out two pirates in a flash, and wounded a third before pain blossoms in the back of his skull. A hit to the head knocking him over into the ground, into a puddle. All he can hope as the water hit his face, is that they leave him here long enough to drown. 

When he woke again his arms are tied above his head. He doesn’t know how long he’s been out of it, but he has a very red sunburn over his chest and belly. His head tipped down and able to see how thin he has gotten. His ankles are tied, spread apart, secured to wooden posts. He’s dressed only his in gray pants, cut and ripped in places. He can feel the burn running over his face, arms and hands as well. 

Trying to lift his head he looked up, seeing the ropes binding his arms together, hanging him from a wooden rack. Hung out to dry, Phasma had said, though he doesn’t remember a room of water. Maybe they skipped that part. 

There was someone to his left. Watching him. Rolling his head towards the shadow he tried to focus. His eyes hurt, too much sun maybe. Focusing on the figure he had no idea who the man was but he wore Phasma’s chrome breastplate.

“That… doesn’t look… as good on you, as it does Phasma.” he said, or at least he hoped he said it. If he’s going to die, he’s going to go down being a pain in everyone's ass, that was for sure. 

The pirate laughed, coming over closer, lowering himself a bit, sideways, to look Hux in the face. “You know, there was a pool going around. To see which you’d be caught fraternizing with first. The Dark Warrior or the Captain of Troopers. I’d like to think I could have won, what with your protective display of the dear Captain.” 

Hux’s eyes narrowed. One of the troopers. It had to be.

“I’ve never heard you scream like that before, General. Yelling for us to let her go. Banging on the cell door so hard they actually thought you’d break through it. I hadn’t realized you were so sweet on the pretty blond. Then again, you were delirious at that point. Still, I had money on you two being a thing.” 

“You would… have lost that bet.” Hux said in a hiss, eyes narrowed at this man. 

“Huh, you and the knight? Can’t see it. He’s not as… polished as you.” He said, smiling at his own joke as he rubbed his hand over the chest of his new chrome armor. “Then again I always thought you might be a bit dickless. Hiding behind the strongest your fleet has to offer. The amount of times I’ve had to fly you around. You never leave without one of the two. But, you and your pet knight. Interesting. We got lucky this time, that it was just you and the big one.” 

“He’s not… my _pet_.” He hissed, feeling it all click into place now. The Pilot. Of the shuttle. The only other one that could have known. “TC-2485.” 

“In the flesh. Out of that damned buckethead helmet. Oh, General, if you only knew how much you are worth, alive, or dead.” TC-2485 said, leaning in to grasp the man's chin, lifting his head up painfully fast. He stared him in the eyes. 

“It’s nothing personal, sir. Just business. They offered an amount of money I really couldn’t refuse, but the freedom was a very nice bonus. Priceless. You and that monster took that away from me. Now we’re taking it away from you.” 

So it was personal. 

They were dead for sure. 

“You better do it soon, TC-2485. That monster… you speak of? You took away her trigger hand. If you let her get away, there goes your freedom. If you let me slip through your hands, there goes your security.” He said, mustering up enough breath to sound sure of himself. To be bold, like the General always was. “If one of us slips through your fingers you’ll never know a good night's sleep again. You’ll know no port to be safe. no planet to be capable to hide you. No one will be safe around you either. I’ll make sure of that.” 

The sudden force of a fist came from nowhere, busting him in the mouth and rocking his head back into his arms. The man was growling at him, talking, telling him to shut up, but Hux wasn’t hearing any of it. 

Blood seeped from his nose and mouth, creeping through the scruffy beard and mustache, warm and tingling, like a tiny bug trying to push through the red strands of hair. He felt the blood trickle around and over his lip, down over his chin and drip slowly down his neck. 

He hated beards. It made him look too much like his father. Or like his father had been when he was younger. He liked the clean and orderly feel of a fresh shaved face. Unlike some people, he liked looking young. A young general aimed for greatness. He felt no insult when someone thought he was too young, because in time they came to realize he wasn’t too young, he was just a genius. 

He felt anything but brilliant right now. The beard made him feel old. The lack of strength and body weight made him feel frail. In his mind he was picturing himself as a old decrepit Admiral, useless and ornery, full of hate and spite and terror. He was picturing himself becoming his father, but older. Angrier. 

It was a terrible image. 

With his head tipped back he started to chuckle. Still hearing the man bitching before him, but not what he was saying. He laughed, a bit of a broken sound, eyes closed and feeling as if he were losing it again. There had honestly been a few times where he broke down into one fit or another as the silence or stillness got to him, but this sounded like he had actually lost it now. 

“And the General finally loses it.” The man said with a growl, backing away. 

Hux’s eyes opened while he laughed, eyes up to the sky. There was something there, in the distance. He recognized it. Or maybe he was seeing things. His head lifted, blood seeping from his nose still making him look a frightful mess. But he stared at the other man as the man backed up. 

“Let me give you a piece of advice, TC-2485. Run.” He let out a breath, then smiled. “Run while you still can. My _pet_ as you put it, will not be so merciful as I would be. I would have you put down. Slowly. Locked in a cell for months. Fed scraps from the tables of disgusting aliens. Take off a hand, maybe a foot. Watch you whittle away slowly, until one day you find the cell door open. Freedom. That freedom you so seek. I’d give it to you, but you’ll be too afraid to take it. A trap of some sort, maybe. Or do i simply want the trash out of my cells.” 

“Shut up.” the man said, glaring at him. “Shut up, Hux!” The man spat, stepping forward to belt Hux again, cross the jaw. “No one is coming for you! By this time tomorrow you’re dead. Dead, you hear me!” 

Hux smiled at that, twisting his jaw back and forth as if to make sure it still worked. “I gave you fair warning. Remember that, when Kylo Ren runs that pretty little sword of his through your traitorous body. Remember that I gave you a chance. More than you gave me.” 

At that point there was blaster fire, and behind the man a pillar of smoke started to raise up over the camp in the distance. Hux let his head tilt into his arm, giving, as cool a look as possible, to the other. “Oh… that must be camp. Sounds like a party.” 

The pure pale white of the man's naturally dark face was enough to make Hux smile once again proudly. He liked the look of fear the other got. And enjoyed more the man’s movements to scramble away, only to suddenly freeze. 

Frozen in mid step, body jerking a bit as if he were struggling to run still. 

“You took your damned time.” Hux managed out, head swimming again. When one's arms are tied above their head for so long, it’s harder to get a proper full breath, and right now he felt a bit light in the head anyhow. Still, he refused to remove his eyes from the former trooper. 

That is until the dark clad figure steps in front of him, helmet black as night but still giving the appearance of appraisal of the other. “Scruffy.” The single word came out dark on the filtered mask. 

Hux’s lip curled at that, blood seeping over his lips to stain his teeth, eyes lifting to stare at the black face before him. “Of all the things to notice, you chose that to remark first on?” His voice flat and emotionless now. 

“You look like shit.” Kylo said instead, lifting a black clad hand up to run fingers along the side of the man’s jaw, feeling the scruffy beard and pushing aside a bit of blood. There was the smallest twist of care in the movement.

Hux doesn’t take to people caring for him very well. It’s not something he grew up with, at all. It’s stranger still any time Kylo showed some small sign of caring, in any form. The two of them had been in… compromising positions before. He shouldn’t have. Ever. A slip of the tongue once, an argument that lead to something else, only to wake up with the Knight in his bed. It had happened more and more after that. Always an argument, and always what he thought of as a mistake. As the last time. 

Clearing his head and trying to pull back from the hand Hux took a breath in and tipped his head to the side. “You hold my pilot.. and traitor.” Then tipping his head back a bit, added. “Phasma. Might still… be alive. In a cell back there.” Or he thought it was back there. He had his bearings so twisted around now that he had no clue where he was. 

He saw Kylo’s head turn, not past him but to the left. There was a whine of metal and a bust of wood as the door was ripped from it’s hinges with the force. So hard that Hux could feel the twisted scrap wood fly past and behind them, shooting off into the distance to the right. The dark warrior signaled troopers to the cells with a snap. 

“Do you.. mind? Any time now.” Hux said, twisting his wrists in the ropes, growling at how tight they were feeling. His hands were cold, clearly the circulation having failed.

“Can you stand?” Kylo said, pulling his lightsaber out, the hum of the blade and red glow were a welcome feel to Hux, strangely enough. Each rope around his ankle was cut, leaving Hux to sway forward, trying to get his feet under him. 

“I think so.” He said, trying to hold what little pride he had left as he moved on numb feet, trying to release some tension in his shoulders. As the rope above his head was cut, he sucked in a breath, feeling his arms drop like dead stone weights, pitching him forward a bit. He tried to step, but he legs wouldn’t allow it, dropping him to his knees. 

He found a strong arm wrapped around his back suddenly, helping him lower to the ground a bit more gracefully. “Kylo…” He gasped, head swimming at the sudden rush of movement. He felt the heat of the lightsaber carefully cut away at the ropes around his hands, sucking in a swift breath as blood rushed back into his hands, burning and tingling with such rage through unused blood lines. 

Kylo said something, the sight of his hand clenched tightly catching Hux’s attention more than anything. What ever he said went unheard though, the beating of blood in his ears too loud for him to catch what it was. He felt himself start to sway, his head tipping more as he was folding over on himself. That strong arm letting him go a moment. A quick movement of dark legs moving past him. 

The bright red of the blade shined, humming and crackling, a welcome sound. And then the scream of the man frozen mid step could be heard, breaking through the fog of his mind.

Hux felt his body tipping over, curling onto his side as his mind swam. From there his eyes closed, opening only a few other times that night. 

Once as he felt himself being lifted up, picked up with ease and carried by the Dark Knight in black. Kylo taking his form in both arms and walking him back the way they came. His eyes closed for a moment, opening again to just barely see two stormtroopers hauling the blond woman between them, her feet still working but slowly. The third time his eyes opened, he saw the smoke. Stormtroopers standing around, wrangling pirates here and there. 

As his eyes closed that last time the sound of Kylo’s deep filtered voice was satisfying enough for him. “Kill them all.” Followed by blaster fire and screams. 

Hux didn’t wake again until after they are in Hyperspace. Apparently they’ve been in space for a while, headed back to the Unknown Regions and to the hidden base and the First Order. When he first wakes it’s in a dimly lit bunk on the shuttle. He found himself in one of the lower bunks, washed and cleaned up, looking almost ghost like even in the dim light of the small cabin. 

His hand lifted, feeling the tug of an IV in his wrist. He reached up to feel his beard had been washed as well, even combed out to be orderly. His hair was longer and untamed, but soft. 

He had forgotten what clean felt like. 

With a small groan he tried to sit up in the bunk, needing to move. Only just as he moved he felt the pressure of a hand on his chest, pushing him back down. 

“Don’t bother getting up.” A deep voice said from beside him, leaning in from the seat he was taking up in the small space, holding his hand to the General’s chest to keep him down. There was no struggle at all, as the man still had no strength to him to fight it. 

With a huff of breath, he let Kylo Ren hold him back to the bed. “Where are we?” He asked, voice sounding weak even to himself. 

“Three days from base. Time enough for rest..” the dark haired man said, dark eyes watchful of Hux. Looking over every inch of his face, as if studying it. 

Hux frowned, looking up at the man beside his bed. “And Phasma?” He wished the other wouldn’t look at him like that. There were emotions behind those eyes. He didn’t like it. 

“Alive. Angry, but alive.” 

They’ll be able to fit her with a new hand, so it wasn’t a great loss. Not that he couldn’t sack her and find another Captain of his troops, but… in all honesty, after this event, there was no one else out there he trusted more than the female warrior. No one but perhaps Kylo Ren. A thought that annoyed him on some small level. He didn’t want attachments. He didn’t want connections like this. To feel protective of his Captain. To feel… grateful to his Knight. 

He didn’t like it. 

“The pirates?” He asked, though he was sure he knew the answer. 

Kylo’s face twisted a bit darker at the mention of the pirates. “All dead, but one.” His lip curling as he said it, as if keeping the one alive had been against his own wishes. “The leader is currently being held for your choosing.” His head bowed a little bit, as if he just bestowed a gift to Hux. 

Hux looked surprised at first, head tilting to look over at the other man. “You left the leader alive for me?” 

“I can shove him out an airlock if you would rather, _General_.” The other was swift to say, as if that sounded like a great plan. 

Hux shook his head, just slightly, a hand coming up to scratch through his blasted beard. “No, i have a better idea for later.” One that Phasma might want to sit in on. One that would take months, if done right. A plan that will remind anyone in their ranks that to cross the General Hux or his trusted people, would not always end in death, but utter pain. 

“Scruffy.” Kylo said again, though this time when Hux looked to him with the look of extreme annoyance, he saw a smile drawn across the others face, like a shitty smirk. 

“You can kindly stop remarking on it, Ren.” Hux said crossly, hand stroking over the beard now as if to get it under control, frowning sharply about it. 

“You called me Kylo, planet side. You were glad to see me.” The man pointed out, brow raised and leaning in at the side of the bed, reaching up to take away the hand that stroked the red beard. “And it’s not so bad, this beard. It could look worse.” 

“I wasn’t exactly all there, Ren.” Hux hissed, trying to pull his hand away from the others grip. “And of course I was. I was in the middle of a month and a half long captive torture. You took your damned time about finding me. Maybe if you had--” 

Kylo cut him off, leaning over him now. “Shut up.” He commanded, just inches from his face, dark eyes staring, searching Hux’s eyes so carefully. There were those emotions again. “Just shut up. I know you don’t… care, but I’ve been looking for you since it was reported you were missing. I haven’t stopped, even when the Admiral and Supreme Leader Snoke said I should. Complain all you like, but know I didn’t stop looking.” 

Unsure what to say to that, Hux seemed startled, looking up at the other, mouth working a moment, as if to push out some complaint or protest, or even a thank you. He’d never had anyone defy his father let alone Snoke for him. “I… I don’t…” 

“I said shut up, Hux.” Kylo repeated, leaning in to kiss the man. 

It wasn’t their normal kind of kiss. If there was a kiss at all between them, normally it was biting and painful, angry and harsh. Pushed against each other in a moment of frustration, the sexual tension suddenly exploding behind closed doors. If there was ever a kiss, it was not nice. It was not soft. It was not a tender thing. That was beyond both of their abilities, he was sure. 

And yet this was soft, yet firm. Kylo’s free hand came up to run through the whiskers along Hux’s jaw, very softly sliding fingertips through the scruff, taking the moment to tenderly steal a kiss from the General. 

Hux found himself leaning up into the touch and the kiss, feeling almost starved for this kind of attention, though it was attention he has never been used to or known.

The kiss broke only because of the twinge in his side, having leaned up to meet Kylo in the kiss, wanting more of it, but the pain made him draw back. The Dark Knight also drew back, eyes scrunching up in concern again, looking over the other. 

“You should rest.” He said, drawing back now, looking a little surprised with himself as he did. His hand pulled Hux’s down to his side, as if to tell him to leave it there in order to rest. “You… you need the rest. I’ll be back later to check on you.” His voice was darker again, that stern tone he got when he was being serious. The darker brows drawn together again over dark eyes. 

“I have three days to rest.” Hux said back, drawing his hand back up to rub at his jaw, frowning. 

Kylo was rubbing at his own jaw, just under his lower lip. “I’ll be sure to bring you a razor.” He said, nose wrinkling a bit, as if kissing the man with that much face fuzz was not what he wanted. 

As he started for the door, Hux called back to him. “Kylo?” And letting out a slow caught breath, when he knew the other hand stopped. “Thank you. For… coming for me.” 

There was a click of the other man's helmet, locking back into place. His dark filtered voice coming in low. “Think nothing of it, General.” before the door opened and he stepped out it, leaving Hux alone in the dim room.


End file.
